Re: Is Time Real?

This feeling is universal to all of mankind. When a “feeling”, like this, is so ubiquitous and universal, then it can be classed as an “observation”, like the sun rising from the east and setting in the west. Everyone experiences it. It is not subjective.

All human beings are mammals on the surface of the earth who breath air. Your excuses do not mean we search for answers directly in fundamental physics. There is a very clear reason why : those equations, those laws of physics hold up on the surface of stars, and even in the freeze-dried vacuum of interstellar space. Physics describes matter on the frozen moons of Neptune. There is no life in those pockets of the universe, not even bacteria.

Something universal among human beings does not justify its explanation in terms of fundamental physics. (unless you are a Creationist or some brand of mystic.)

Re: Is Time Real?

Are you saying we observe consciousness? Are we conscious of consciousness or are we simply conscious. Do I experience an experience or is there just experience?

A difficulty of science is presenting the evidence and turning it into a bunch of words as explanation.

As experiencing "beings" we have experiences and frame them in space and time. I cannot experience something wholly unrelated to space and time. As an abstract concept I can give a sense of "other" to time and through physical idelaization make a measurement of time in order to have an objectivified view "as if" beyond my subjective experience.

Hyksos -

I don't think you are being fair by making such comparisons to mysticism and creatonism. If you wish simply to antagonise then you are taking the right approach.

There does seem to be two very different views of time being expressed here. One if "time" as physically measured and one is as subjextice experience. We know that time can subjectively seem to move slowly and quickly, our experiences of sleep and dreaming also play into this subjective understanding. We can explore the subjective understanding of time by objective means through neuroscience, but there is not a goal we are intending to reach only an exploration.

Raj -

I am starting to think you're dealing more with the so called "hard problem" here. I will not draw a line under that yet and wait for an explanation as to why this is an issue for physics.

I am fairly sure we all agree the physical universe is "there" and that we know a great amount about what we can observe. We cannot, sadly, observe ourselves observing.

Re: Is Time Real?

Me: This feeling is universal to all of mankind. When a “feeling”, like this, is so ubiquitous and universal, then it can be classed as an “observation”, like the sun rising from the east and setting in the west. Everyone experiences it. It is not subjective.

hyksos » January 11th, 2017, 1:34 am All human beings are mammals on the surface of the earth who breath air. Your excuses do not mean we search for answers directly in fundamental physics….

Your logic is absurd. Just because we are mammals, should we not have used physics to explore the movement of the Earth, planets, stars? We are curious animals. We wonder. We want to know. At least some of us do.

“ Physics describes matter on the frozen moons of Neptune. There is no life in those pockets of the universe, not even bacteria..”

Firstly, you cannot make any such declaration. Your pronouncements on science have been abysmally wrong. There is a very good chance there is life on Mars, Europa and other places in the Solar system. But even if there isn’t, what possible connection has that got with Time?

Time is intimately tied with the Universe. It’s the fourth dimension of space-time. It appears in every equation of physics, so very obviously the answer to our question lies in physics. Every physicist of note has dealt with the question, Einstein, Hawking, Eddington, Lee Smolin. Sean Carroll said "The origin of the universe and the arrow of time are major unsolved problems in our understanding of the natural world. But there is every reason to expect that they will someday be understood using the laws of physics.”

Now should I go with Sean Carroll or with hyksos? That’s a tough one…. Hmmm… arrr… I think I’ll go with Carroll.

Re: Is Time Real?

Dave_Oblad wrote: stuff doesn't degrade into the past.. stuff degrades into the future.

"Stuff" is matter/energy - matter/energy degrading/dispersing into the future is the second law of thermodynamics, which indicates one of the arrows of time, the thermodynamic arrow of time.History is tied with information, not with the Law of conservation of Mass/Energy. Although the atoms in my body may be preserved, the information they carry is linked with their arrangement, which is not preserved.

Dave_Oblad on January 9th, 2017, 5:38 am wrote: I doubt that History ceases to Exist behind the Present… I .. don't see an erasing mechanism nor any requirement for such to exist.

Actually, it does. It all derives from what Lee Smolin calls "The Cosmological Fallacy" - all our laws, including General and Special Relativity and Quantum dynamics, are derived for closed systems, based on a paradigm designed by Newton, (my understanding). This fallacy in turn springs from what Smolin calls "The principle of no isolated systems.". There can't be any isolated system because no wall. no matter how thick or dense it is, can shut out gravity waves. Thus all our most successful theories, including the Standard Model, and General Relativity, are approximate theories. And all symmetries are approximate, and so are the laws of conservation of energy, momentum, and angular momentum.

Re: Is Time Real?

Sorry pressed submit by mistake before I had finished writing it.Anyway - The laws of conservation of energy, momentum, and angular momentum, the cornerstones of our physics, are approximate!To cut a long story short for the moment, information is not preserved, history is not preserved.The Cosmological Fallacy puts Einstein's Block Universe in the garbage heap where it belongs.The future is open and unknown.

Re: Is Time Real?

"Why do you still believe in the existence of God clueless one, when there is no actual proof he really exists in the first place?" "Show us some actual proof, or any other proof, that he really exists somewhere anywhere!?" "Your belief in the existence of God is not backed up by modern science, and shows that you are a silly person, and a really big dummy, who believes in superstation and fables!"

Yet, when I personally challenge people here to point out just one scientific example of "time" actually existing somewhere anywhere in the physical universe naturally in singular thing or object form(and again, not being something else actually existing here naturally and physically), everyone runs for the exits and does not respond to my challenge, or just tries to dance around the question like you did Raj.

What is time? I took my own challenge many years ago, and looked at every single thing that was associated with time, and none of the things that I looked at were ever time the thing or object existing naturally somewhere anywhere in the physical universe.

The movement of a regular clock or atomic clock is time the thing or object naturally existing and moving here? Nope something else. The movement of a regular clock or atomic clock is just (only) that...the movement of a regular clock or atomic clock(you are one thing or the other people...you can't be both things) The days, seasons, and years existing are time the thing or object existing? Nope, the physical effects of something else again. Time is a thing or object that physically ages you...nope something else again. Time or Spacetime began in the Big Bang? Nope something else again or just duration. Etc. Etc.

Again, prove it people, if you still insist that time is a naturally occurring thing or object existing somewhere anywhere in the universe.

I am of course not saying that time does not exist at least in some ways. Time does of course exist as a word man uses to again identify and describe the many different results of his timekeeping system("what time is it?")

Re: Is Time Real?

Raj wrote:Sorry pressed submit by mistake before I had finished writing it.Anyway - The laws of conservation of energy, momentum, and angular momentum, the cornerstones of our physics, are approximate!To cut a long story short for the moment, information is not preserved, history is not preserved.The Cosmological Fallacy puts Einstein's Block Universe in the garbage heap where it belongs.The future is open and unknown.

Sorry, but simply saying that doesn't make it true.It feels like you are taking the least favored side of "Presentism".Einstein favored a concept called "Eternalism".

The latter has one looking at the Universe from the Outside and seeing the Universe from a perspective of being complete. It is a Deterministic view but requires a definition for "Complete" which can only be an arbitrary demarcation. Like when all the Black Holes have evaporated, Matter has disintegrated and the Energy content has stabilized at zero. But even still, in such a final condition, Time will still march on.

The issue with such a Deterministic view is that there exists a strong body of people that persist in their belief that Quantum Mechanics is not deterministic and thus want to scrap the Block Model Eternalism, as you you do.

However, the vast majority of working Physicists are accepting the modified version called the "Expanding Block Model" because it is consistent with Observations, the Math of GR and Quantum Mechanics.

The view you hold as "Presentism" is actually the least favored view of the three. The Expanding Block Model says that the Past still exists as does the Present but the Future is Undermined. However the Past is currently not accessible with our Technology. That is one of those fringe areas I have explored quite a bit. I see a possible Technology coming in a few decades that may permit us to view the Actual Past in extreme detail. For now, I call it Quantum TV and that is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The full ramifications are mind blowing.

But let's not pursue that here, as it would be a major distraction from the OP and I'll get accused of Thread Hijacking.. lol.

So is Time Real? Yes, of course it is. Does Time Exist? Well, that requires a valid definition of Time.. and that requires an explanation for the Mechanics of Time. That endeavor is showing that Time doesn't Exist as we perceive it to be (Ie: Time is actually just Distance in a 4D Universe). As Einstein points out that Time is more than just the evolution of a 3D Universe.

So if you want to pursue the concept of Presentism, then I have already shown some flaws in that Logic (thickness of Time). But there are many more astute Physicists and Mathematicians that have already published papers that destroy Presentism as having any validity (conflicts with Relativity).Here for example.

After searching the Net, I've come to a conclusion the Presentism is a Philosophical view point and pundits can be found on all sides of the Debate. The field of Physics and Mathematics tend to reject Presentism as far as I can tell, mostly because the Expanding Block Model is becoming so much embraced.

Of course, I've already taken the stance of supporting the Expanding Block Model side.

I believe that Entropy causes Time in the same way that Birds flying South brings on Winter..lol.

Re: Is Time Real?

Time is intimately tied with the Universe. It’s the fourth dimension of space-time. It appears in every equation of physics, so very obviously the answer to our question lies in physics. Every physicist of note has dealt with the question, Einstein, Hawking, Eddington, Lee Smolin.

"..so very obviously" ??? Okay first of all, even if a fundamental forward flow of time were discovered in the laws of Quantum Field THeory tomorrow -- nobody would extrapolate that fundamental arrow of time to the "subjective experience of aging". In particular, Lee Smolin himself would not make that 1-to-1 mapping, because he himself recognizes it as a different form of time. You should already know this, if you have read Chapter 16 of "Time Reborn".

Did you read Chapter 16 of Time Reborn??

Last edited by hyksos on January 11th, 2017, 3:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Re: Is Time Real?

"The origin of the universe and the arrow of time are major unsolved problems in our understanding of the natural world. But there is every reason to expect that they will someday be understood using the laws of physics.”

Now should I go with Sean Carroll or with hyksos? That’s a tough one…. Hmmm… arrr… I think I’ll go with Carroll.

No I do not disagree with what Sean Carroll says there. I never disagreed with that statement anywhere in this thread, nor anywhere on this forum. You are now committing the foul of sticking words in my mouth.

Yes physics may eventually explain the COSMOLOGICAL arrow of time (which is what Mr. Carroll is really referring to there). But that explanation will not come in the form of pedestrian (often wrong) little "opinions" typed into this forum by rajnz00.

Re: Is Time Real?

I am not, as you claim, ignoring the brain, biology, thermodynamics, the immediate conditions of the earth's surface. If as you say they provide very good evidence towards an explanation, then tell me what it is.

I will now tell you what it is. The following are two pages are from the book The Road To Reality , by Sir Roger Penrose.

There is a reason that Dr. Penrose spent an entire chapter talking about this, and showing a little pictorial of it. Life forms are open thermodynamic systems which convert Gibbs free energy (in the form of sunlight) into work which they use to grow, run, and do stuff, into a form of energy which is unusable, emitted back into space as infrared. You, as a human being are a plant eater. Also, it is very likely you are breathing air into and out of your lungs right now. We eat the plants, we break down their carbohydrates, and then combine them with oxygen in our mitochondria.

Every eagle-eyed reader on this forum will notice you have said nothing about this anywhere in this thread. There are issues in fundamental physics regarding time, and I will not deny such (Lee Smolin, et al). But as far as work-a-day human experience of time goes, the above pages go a really long way in providing concrete answers to that work-a-day question ; even scientific ones.

The "time" of our clocks and work shifts is a different phenomenon than "time" as spoken about by grey-haired professors at a chalkboard over at Princeton. Without plants, sunlight, and water our species would dwindle quickly, and likely go extinct. It comes down to you realizing that human experience of the world is several layers separated from the microscopic dynamic processes of fundamental physics. Humans are blood-and-bone and skin entities with organs and cells. We are not animated Pinocchio dolls.

rajnz00 We have heard your mouth for seven pages now. This is what you are going to do. You are going to get a copy of Time Reborn by Lee Smolin. You will read all of chapter 16 carefully, and provide to us an 800-word synopsis of the material covered in that chapter. Then you are to get a copy of The Road to Reality, by Penrose. Read chapter 27, and provide to us another 800-word synopsis of its material.

I do not hold anyone else to such high standards. But you are different. You're flippant. You're sarcastic. You are combative, and you are practically troll-ish in your approach. Go ahead and be like that, that's fine. But you must earn the right to be like that. You have'nt earned it.

My interaction with you on this forum will cease, until the time in which you fulfill these homework assignments to my satisfaction.

Re: Is Time Real?

Hyksos, you can recommend reading but you can't browbeat members and give them "homework" assignments. However much truth is in your last 3 paragraphs, they violate the spirit of SPCF discourse. I would remove them. The rest of the posting is okay. You can certainly PM those homework recommendations to Raj, though it's possible your abrasiveness has already alienated him.

Raj, you must also keep the peace here. That means dropping the sarcastic and/or dismissive tone and not just offering bold assertions when challenged. If you want to talk Smolin, you need to have read him and be able to give citations that are specific to your points.

Re: Is Time Real?

Braininvat - I had nothing against Hyksos, till he suddenly popped out and attacked me. In fact in our physics thread, it was quite cordial and he actually agreed with me re entropy. Now it seems anything I say needs to be attacked. I try and quote Lee Smolin and others from the notes I have taken. Some of it is from my own understanding. Some are exact quotations. Also from Hawking, Richard Muller etc.

Re: Is Time Real?

There are two possible discussions about "time"(like I believe hyksos may be alluding to in his most recent post): There is of course "time" in physics or "Spacetime" as this is called, and there is also "time" in philosophy and every day life. All of you sound very knowledgeable about "time" or "Spacetime" in physics(Biv, Dave, Dragonfly, hyksos, Raj, and a number of others here) but with the exception of hyksos, none of you seem the least interested in looking at "time" from any other angle.

The problem with being only familiar with again "Spacetime" in regards to "time" and then completely ignoring and dismissing the possible metaphysical/ontological truths about the same concept, is that you risk believing things about time that are only correct in physics, but not in the natural world where it really counts.

Time began in the Big Bang as a fourth dimension of space(Spacetime), and then expanded everywhere with the physical universe. Yes, this is correct in the science of physics, and Smolin and a number of others can tell you a great deal more about this in the books they write about this, but this was never again actually true in the real or natural world, or in objective reality where it actually matters to science.

Is "time" a naturally occurring fourth dimension of space that actually began in the Big Bang? No, this is complete bullshit no matter what famous person tries to tell you otherwise. Again, yes this is correct in modern physics, but the famous "time dimension" again has no real or actual counterpart in the natural world, because "time" was never a real distinct thing or object existing anywhere in the first place.

Again, there is no scientific evidence existing anywhere that "time" has ever actually existed in any distinct thing or object form anywhere in the physical universe, like it would have to to actually be a fourth dimension of space.

And again, prove me wrong people. Point something out to me and everyone else that is actually "time" actually existing somewhere in distinct thing or object form anywhere in the physical universe.

Re: Is Time Real?

DaveOblad wrote:The view you hold as "Presentism" is actually the least favored view of the three. The Expanding Block Model says that the Past still exists as does the Present but the Future is Undermined.

I meant that to read:The view you hold as "Presentism" is actually the least favored view of the three. The Expanding Block Model says that the Past still exists as does the Present but the Future is Undetermined.

Actually, the first version is rather funny.. but not what I meant. I'm such a screw-up.. no matter how many times I try to proof a post before submitting.. it's always something. I have a bad habit of reading what I wrote and not reading what I had written.. lol. (if that makes any sense)

I really try very hard to focus on what a person says and not the person themselves. Some people make that harder than it needs to be.

Re: Is Time Real?

Braininvat, I just read hyksos's post, after his latest one and was quite amused by it. I strongly oppose any post from being deleted. But then I'm a strong believer in free speech. "Truth" will win out in the battle of ideas'hyksos does have a sense of humour (possibly the only sense he has)hyksos, you do have the glimmer of an idea there, though I could make a synopsis of your posts in one very short sentence.

Re: Is Time Real?

"Also, most philosophy threads have an allergy warning:" "May contain traces of nut." Most definitely Biv! And whenever I encounter this in my favorite forum, I usually try to help the poor fellow out by using my best logic to disprove his silliness, and show him the error of his ways.

Re: Is Time Real?

Continuing from where I left off - One of the arguments, for why time IS an illusion, springs from the fact that Time can be reversed, in the laws of Physics. If the direction of the laws of nature can be reversed, then there cannot, in principle, be any difference between the past and the future. Thus our common experience of time moving unidirectionally from the past into the future, cannot be a fundamental property of nature and hence an illusion. They all spell the death of time as anything real.

Boltzmann “For the universe, the two directions of time are indistinguishable, just as in space there is no up and down.”

But, the experiments, which determine the laws of nature, are “experiments in a box”, for isolated systems, and we are on the outside, looking in. Our laws of physics, like the second Law of Thermodynamics, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_la ... modynamics, which gives us the thermodynamic arrow of time, applies to isolated systems.

"The principle of no isolated systems" springs from the fact that no system can be truly isolated from its surroundings, and the cosmological fallacy, springs from the fact, that for the whole universe, there is no outsider looking in. The probability laws apply for many instances of the same thing, The Universe is only one instance of one thing.

Thus they cannot be applied to the universe as a whole and, though fantastically accurate on regional scales, are only approximations.

One of the arguments that Time is real and fundamental comes from Shape Dynamics,

Simultaneity of events can occur with adjacent or near objects. I get up and walk around, or hit a ball to you and you hit it back. But for objects far away, say on another galaxy, we cannot order events by time, or by size. Your birthday might appear before Darth Vader's but Vader might say his does. Also, you might say you are bigger than Vader and he might disagree.

So there was this guy, Julian Barbour, and a few other guys, (who discovered this problem about size), and found a solution to the problem - Shape. Sizes may change, but not shapes. If you are round, pudgy guy in andromeda galaxy, you will be round and pudgy here too, even if you change from the size of an elephant to that of a mouse. So now you could bring objects from different parts and compare them together. But, apparently, there is a catch. The size of the Universe mustn't change. So if the guys shrink if they are brought here, something somewhere else has to expand by the same amount.

And another thing about shape dynamics. Sizes can change, but not time. There has to be one single time for the whole universe! Remember Newton? This is the opposite to General Relativity, where sizes don't change but time does. These theories are more or less equivalent and derive from the same equations.

But shape dynamics, in addition, "achieves an accord between the experimental success of the principle of relativity and the need for a global time demanded by theories of evolving laws and hidden-variable explanations of quantum phenomena." - This I have written down from Lee Smolin's book. (The rest is from my notes). There is no disagreement with SR time dilation in inertial frames smaller than those of the universe.

"if time is real, in the sense of a real present moment, there is a boundary all observers can agree on between the real present and the not yet real future. This implies a universal, physical notion of simultaneity that includes distant events and, indeed, the whole universe." This Smolin calls Preferred Global time. It does not require the discard of SR, just a modification of its equations. (?) I think I'm right on this - the modification.

"one quantity not allowed to change when you expand and shrink scales is the overall volume of the universe at each time. This makes the overall size of the universe and its expansion meaningful, and this can be taken for a universal physical clock. Time has been rediscovered."

Re: Is Time Real?

In the last few years, Niall Ó Murchadha, several students, and I have explored the implications of the relativity of size(current research).

If all distances in the universe were doubled over night, nothing would tell us this had happened. We therefore believe that relativity of size should be built into the foundations of dynamics.

Strangely, Einstein’s general relativity just fails to implement perfect relativity of size. This is what allows the universe to expand in his theory.

The Big Bang violates relativity of size. Most cosmologists accept this without even realising that it is an issue.

We created a scale-invariant theory very like general relativity but with perfect relativity of size. However, our construction was not satisfactory, being unable to explain fundamental observational facts in cosmology.

Relativity of size is such an attractive principle, I long believed that a dynamics of pure shape would one day be found, but in the last two years my thinking has changed somewhat. The changed perspective is reflected in the final four papers in Papers before the two on maximal variety.

These define a theory of gravity that my current collaborators and I call Shape Dynamics. It retains the essential dynamical core of general relativity while removing in a well-motivated way structure that is potentially redundant and may well be responsible for the difficulties in the creation of quantum gravity.

My collaborators Henrique Gomes, Sean Gryb, Tim Koslowski and Flavio Mercati are now working actively on Shape Dynamics and have obtained very interesting and encouraging results, ...

Re: Is Time Real?

Ok, some quotes from lee Smolin's "Time Reborn". It's hard to extract where Lee Smolin places his actual beliefs. To take a quote from his book means you may be taking a piece of what he believes or you may be taking a piece of someone else's ideas that he hopes to discredit or support later. Quotes out of context become meaningless.

The real issue I have with most of those views is the persistence of inserting concepts that may not apply. The most common one is that of "Duration". Lee attempts to reconcile Entanglement Speed by suggesting the Nodes of Space-Time may have long connections.. to avoid the concept that information from points greatly separated must jump more nodes than if those points that are local to each other. The alternative view is that in the Quantum.. the concept of Duration doesn't exist. Without our trying to force the concept of "Duration" into the mix, then it doesn't matter if we are talking about Ten nodes or a Trillion nodes. The flow of information between both cases is Instantaneous and it doesn't matter how many nodes are involved.

There is no "Arrow of Time" in the Quantum. There is no "Time" in the Quantum, even though there is significant instantaneous on-going state changes constantly.

Raj, given your previous quote:

Smolin wrote:one quantity not allowed to change when you expand and shrink scales is the overall volume of the universe at each time. This makes the overall size of the universe and its expansion meaningful, and this can be taken for a universal physical clock. Time has been rediscovered.

Should we extrapolate that Lee is suggesting that our Macro "Time" is derived from the "Expansion of the Universe"? That Time has been rediscovered? That Macro "Time" is Universal?

Raj, we cross posted. Regarding your last post: I might suggest that in the future.. preface your post with source information first, so I know who is talking from the top.

Re: Is Time Real?

Dave said: Should we extrapolate that Lee is suggesting that our Macro "Time" is derived from the "Expansion of the Universe"? That Time has been rediscovered? That Macro "Time" is Universal?

My understand is that Smolin defines a "Universal time" that evolves from [spatial?] relationsbetween all matter in the universe. This time is Universal and would solve the problem of determining simultaneity of events between distant objects. besides evolving a whole new physics and solving a host of other problems of physics.

Re: Is Time Real?

In other words, Newton devised a concept of absolute space and absolute time, existing without relation to objects in the universe, existing "of and in itself", which is absurd. Leibniz disagreed and Leibniz was right. Smolin says yes time exists, time is real, but it is not absolute, existing as a separate entity. It emerges from the dynamic relations between objects. And Universal Time is the sum total of all the all these relationships. Which in itself [slowly?] evolves over time.That is my understanding. And if that is not exactly what he says, that is what I believe.

Re: Is Time Real?

If we lump all the Black Holes, Deep Voids and everything in between, we get a running average for Time? This view would indicate that Time operates at different rates dependent on locality.

My book says that Time is a constant everywhere but Space has a variable Metric. That the Planck Length isn't the same size everywhere. It is scaled as a differential between dense Mass locals and Voids. That "Distance" gets more compressed the closer one gets to a Black Hole. That Space (warped) Curvature and Matter exposed to such a differential.. takes on the Geometry of Acceleration towards the more compressed Space (Gravity). Such Acceleration Geometry in Matter dilates its internal cycles, slowing its clocks. That's clock dilation.. and has nothing to do with Real Time. Likewise, absolute speed changes the Geometry of Matter and also dilates clocks. Again, Real Time has nothing to do with Dilated Clocks.

In this view, nothing gets to a demarcation future point any faster or slower than any other object.. Time wise. That gives us a true Universal Time. As the energy/matter of the Universe depletes then the X,Y,Z distance Metric will resume its initial rapid inflation (early BB).. but Time will still be a constant.. IMHO.

I accept the whole Universe shares a common Simultaneity in Real Time. Unfortunate that the Speed of Light limitation tosses delays into our measurements, making it a bit messy to figure out.. lol. Also, clock dilation has thrown Science a curve ball, further muddying up the whole picture.

This will all become obvious.. once we have developed good FTL communication technology exploiting Entanglement. That (I believe) is on the near horizon, like less than 2 decades away. Hope I live to see it.

Re: Is Time Real?

Dave: This view would indicate that Time operates at different rates dependent on locality.

Judging from the speed of light, this doesnt seem to be on fairly largish scales. We have our psychological time, when time seems to pass more slowly or quickly, depending on what we are doing. Then there is biological time, of plants and animals. All life seems to have an internal clock. Time is linked with change, change of position, motion.Some great insights about time, down the ages:Heraclitus: All things move, nothing remains still.No man steps into the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and he is not the same man.St Augustine: What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.When asked, why did God create the world when he did and not later or earlier? (as per the Bible story of creation out of nothing), said - God did not create the world in time he created the world [together] with time. (The concept of the beginning of time)Leibniz: Space is the order of coexisting thingsTime is the succession of coexisting things